Dr. Rothbaum on How PTSD Affects Veterans

February 7, 2018, 9:13 am By Emory Brain Health Center

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can result from a traumatic or life-threatening event such as military combat. Thousands of servicemembers and Veterans struggle with PTSD. Often, they resist seeking help because of negative ideas about PTSD or the fear of what others might think. PTSD can affect personal relationships and even destroy families.

Question:Can you have PTSD even though you didn’t see combat?

Dr. Rothbaum: Absolutely. PTSD can result from any event in which someone felt that they or someone they care about could be seriously injured or killed. Sexual assault survivors, motor vehicle crash survivors, natural disaster survivors, and many others develop PTSD. Approximately 10% of the US population at any given time has PTSD, and most of this is not from combat.

Question: What treatment options do you offer besides talking to a counselor? Talking has got me no where.

Dr. Rothbaum: Good question. We offer what are known as evidence based treatments for PTSD, meaning that controlled studies have shown that these treatments work. “Talking therapy” alone is not one of the treatments that has been shown to work for PTSD. At Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, we are offering Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRE), and others, as well as pharmacotherapy and the combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy. We are offering two tiers of treatment: Tier I are the evidenced based treatments, and Tier II are more innovative treatments for folks who don’t receive an adequate response from Tier I treatments. You can learn more about the treatment options available at http://emoryhealthcare.org/veterans-program/treatments-services/index.html

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